Preferences Versus Desire and Releasing Judgment

I am in Los Angeles for Book Expo America, and I have not been in Southern California for several years. What a unique flavor that is represented here. This is not better than where I live or where you live, for it is all God, but someone may have a preference for living here. As I talk about in my book, there is a big difference between a preference and a desire. A desire is when you are unhappy with yourself or a situation and you want to make a change. For instance, you look at your body and you don't like what you see. Or you are unhappy in your present job or relationship. When you desire something else, you automatically relegate it to a position above what you do not like. Thus you have introduced a difference, and when you see differences, you see separation. A preference is when you like a red car over a blue one, or your favorite food is pizza. We can have preferences while recognizing it is all One. When we are happy in each moment, we love who we are, where we are, and whatever we are doing. When you see everything as holy, preferences arise, not desires. You allow the River of Life to carry you, versus you trying to get away from something in the River. Because we live in a world of appearances, we get to enjoy preferences, like someone who loves to live in California, and there are plenty of those people. I can understand why. Coming out here reminds me of the immense diversity that God appears as. Every section of the country has a unique flavor. Every person living on this Earth has a unique flavor, a unique personality. Instead of judging those differences, which makes you think they are real, embrace the diversity, knowing that it is all One. It is like the bounty overflows with diversity and you walk through the world with wonder. Look at all of the different types of roses, the different number of types of ants. Appreciate and be grateful for the wonder and the beauty, both in nature and in people. Giving up judgment of others is not the easiest thing to do, but it becomes easier when you appreciate the love and diversity within them. You would never judge a certain rose variety as bad, so why would you judge another person that way.

Love's Many Appearances

Although I have written a book and blogs that can be deep and introspective, I live fully in life. By that I mean that I am engaged in daily activities that the world requires of me. Specifically, I work in sales in a family business, and my wife and I have 4 kids that are engaged in numerous activities. Parenting is one of the best ways to discover your divine nature, as great patience and reflection is needed. So my spirituality is not separate from my life. It weaves in and out of my daily activities, and I think that is the nature of a spiritual warrior in these times. In the past mystics and prophets were seen as separate and special, and it was like they were on a mountaintop. Well, in these times all of us are meant to go to the mountaintop and then bring that perspective back to the valley. The subject of this blog comes from the perspective that Love is behind all appearances. It is not only compassion and kindness. It is anger, hatred, cancer, etc. Our family is going to Hawaii this summer, and I had contracted with an individual to rent his condo for part of the trip. I had sent a deposit last year, and our plans have changed, so I asked for the deposit back, as I was within the time frame we could receive a full refund. This guy does not want to give it back, although he has not said that. But he ignores my emails, and the two times he has answered his cell phone, he has promised to send it. It has been 3 weeks since I requested it, and I finally left him a message to day that he has one week to get it to me or face the consequences. I will put up a website that has the exact search info he has when he is promoting his condo, and I will tell everyone to steer away from him. Do I get temporarily mad at him? Yes, but I will not stay there, as I know this state is not real, and peace will not be present there. Before leaving my message, I asked for guidance in what to say, and I asked to come from a space of Love. I want to get my money back, but I do not want to demean another person, because in reality that is me. At a personality level, he is probably a jerk and dishonest, but that is just an appearance. What is really there is Love. And my words, no matter how they sounded on the surface, were Love. It doesn't have to sound like Love to be Love. It is Love by nature. So as you go through the world, do the activities that you need to do from that spot of centering within you, that divine Love within you. When you act from that Love, you may or may not call someone in what appears to be anger. It is an individual choice in each moment. But remember that it can not be anything but Love.

The Divine is Everything

I was watching dishes and I looked out our back window to the small tree that is at eye level and is flowering a beautiful white flower. And it spoke its Love back to me, reminding me that it is Divine and a part of me. In that moment, and that moment is all that exists, I was everywhere and nowhere. I was no longer a player in a dream, no longer a personality named Larry. I was and I Am as I truly Am. Nothing to identify me, no age, no personality, no individuation. And this is truly as you are. The title of this blog is very intentional. I did not say that the Divine is in everything. I said that the Divine is everything. You have to take that further leap. There are many wise teachers in this world who lead you to the Divine, but by only saying the Divine is in everything, you are not going far enough. You are still looking over the cliff in fear as opposed to jumping off the cliff and trusting God to be your parachute. By only saying the Divine is in everything you are holding back, you are clinging to your personality. As the wave, you are not releasing your form back in to the ocean to be part of the great sea. Intellectually you know that you are God, but experientially you are resisting that Truth that there is no separation. There is not God and you. God is not within you, because there are not two of you. Yes, you are the One.

The Illusion of Special Love and Hate Relationships

With the appearance of Duality, we have the appearance of opposites. Everything reflects differences through the contrast of opposites --- black and white, night and day, eating healthy and eating unhealthy. Everything has its counterpart so that one is known through the other. This is how God, how the One, knows Himself, knows Herself. We as the Sonship were created for God to experience Himself as Love. But these are only appearances, and we become lost in these appearances, thinking that they are real and that differences exist. There is Love, and Love is God, all that exists. Then there is the illusion of love, which is a worldly love. It is not true love. As an appearance, its opposite is hate. But this is the illusion of hate. So the illusion of love acts as the contrast to the illusion of love. There are very few people in the world who are loving from the true fountain of Love within themselves. Most love relationships are ones that you originate to balance a hate relationship. You see hate and evil in the world and you think it must be balanced by love and compassion. True service does not originate from this space. True service originates from the Love of God which is extending Creation. When you feel the need to be of service, are you seeing the hate, sorrow, hardship, and evil in the world? Do you see that it needs to be "helped," so that it will turn "positive." For if your service originates from this space, you are on a merry go round which you will never get off. You cannot correct the illusion by trying to fix the illusion. You can "correct" the illusion by realizing that it is an illusion and dropping the belief in it. Then you will see Love, not the illusion of love. Funny thing is that your actions may be the same as when you were serving from the illusion of love. You may donate to the famine victims, or you may serve as a volunteer at the nursing home, but your actions, motivations, and your intent will now be coming from a Real space of Love. And this will have a thousand times more powerful effect than actions taken from an illusory standpoint. For with the latter, nothing real is created. But with the former, you are extending Love, and thus you are extending Creation. Plus, those who are the recipient of your service will see the Light within you, because you have come from a space of Love. And that will help them to remember, help them to awaken, and when they awaken, even just partially, the "hardship" they are encountering will no longer be viewed as a hardship. The illusion will fall away, and with it will be the suffering that they encountered. They may still be homeless or destitute, but if you are not in the illusion, that does not matter anymore. When it is not viewed from a perspective of good and bad, any condition is as holy as another. Remember that it is a dream. Suffering only occurs when we resist the condition and view it as real. This special love/hate illusory balance also applies to your relationships, especially those close to you. Take a step back and watch how your mind justifies, spins, and controls that balance. Most of us feel guilty, and if you feel guilty for something "bad" you did in the relationship, you try to balance that with something "good." Bad and good are just better sounding terms, but they reallyy mean love and hate. Yes, it is that harsh within the illusion, for your ego is constantly trying to gain the upper hand and ensure its survival. And your special relationship partner is very likely doing the same thing. It is a big mess that has zero meaning. It is an illusion. When you release guilt, you stop playing this game of trying to keep love and hate in balance. When you release guilt, you know that it is all Love. Your thoughts and your actions are no longer judged. You recognize that you exist only in a Love relationship, a holy relationship where God is present.

The myth of karma

The belief in karma is the belief that what you to do someone else will come back around to you. If you are cruel to an individual in a certain lifetime, that individual will be part of another lifetime with you so that he or she can be cruel to you. This is the way that everything gets balanced out. But karma operates within the illusion of something happening in the future. This is the illusion of time. There is no future, because only the present moment exists, and in that one holy moment, we have never left God. Thus reincarnation and different lifetimes are part of the dream of separation. Someone may see reincarnation as a higher perspective than having the belief that our total existence is what we have here on earth, but it is still all part of the illusion of time and space. Karma can best be decribed as memory and belief. We have a memory of something that was done to us or that we did in a previous life, and our belief in needing to "balance" that act is what creates the situation where we attempt to balance it. Our belief is what creates this particular "reality," but this is not reality. When we come to the knowing that these lifetimes and these acts are only a dream, then we release the belief that anything has to be balanced. We release the belief that we can be harmed in any way and that we can harm someone else. Attack exists only in the illusion. We cannot harm someone else because we are not separate from them. There is no one else to harm. There is only God, and we are part of that Oneness. There is only one of us. Why would we harm ourself?